The present invention relates to an apparatus for the manufacture of a series of discrete hygienic articles.
Hygienic articles such as absorbent pads, diapers, training pants, adult incontinence devices, sanitary napkins, bed pads, wound dressings and the like are well known in the art. These articles, in particular the disposable hygienic articles, have become a mass market. Hence, these articles have to be manufactured at a high speed and at a low cost.
Generally, such hygienic articles are manufactured by providing a continuous base material such as for example the back sheet or the top sheet, joining other elements of the article to the base material at regular intervals, and finally cutting the continuous web of articles into discrete articles. Such a process and a suitable apparatus are disclosed for example in EP-A-589859.
Whilst being used widely within the industry, these apparatus have inherent restrictions such as a constant speed of the articles along the manufacturing path and a constant orientation of the articles relative to each other along the manufacturing path. Such restrictions imply design limitations which are potentially impeding overall article performance.
The present invention provides an apparatus for manufacturing a series of discrete hygienic articles. The apparatus comprises a supply means, at least one manipulation means, a reception means spatially separated from the supply means, a manufacturing path segment extending from the supply means to the manipulation means and continuing to the reception means, and a transportation system. The transportation system comprises a plurality of independent transportation means for transportation of at least one discrete hygienic article, at least one discrete precursor of a hygienic article, or at least one discrete element of a hygienic article from the supply means to the manipulation means and subsequently to the reception means and a guide means to guide all of the transportation means.
The apparatus of the present invention provides improved versatility in the automated manufacture of discrete hygienic articles in that it allows, for example, independently programmable article speed variation along the manufacturing path, change of orientation of the article relative to the manufacturing path, increased production layout flexibility, easy adaptation of the manufacturing process, and increased independence of processes.